The Great Gold Robbery, 1855

In 1855, four men committed one of the most audacious crimes of
the century, stealing £12,000 (close to a £1million today) from a
London Bridge train bound for Paris.

Planning the robbery

In the late 1840s Agar met Pierce, then employed as a ticket
printer, and they talked about the possibility of stealing the gold
passing regularly between London and Paris.

Agar thought the security was too good and did not pursue the
matter. It was only some years later, when he met Pierce by chance,
was the gold mentioned again.

Agar thought it would be impossible unless impressions of the
safe keys could be obtained. He also wanted to know how many other
people would have to be in the plan. Pierce mentioned two
acquaintances of his, Burgess, the train guard, and Tester, the
Margate stationmaster. After thinking about is carefully, Agar
agreed to attempt to steal the gold.

In May 1854, Agar and Pierce went to Folkestone for a fortnight
and watched the working of the trains. Pierce returned to London,
but Agar stayed on and with Tester’s help, he befriended some
railway staff. He concentrated his attentions on one man, who
handled the keys of the travelling safes. His presence aroused the
suspicions of Inspector GD Hazell and other officers of the South
Eastern Railway Police, and Agar, concerned he had attracted
unwanted attention, decided to leave Folkestone for a while.

By this time Burgess had been introduced into the circle, and the
four met regularly to discuss plans. While the conspirators were
still discussing the details of their plan, fate played into their
hands. Tester was promoted and transferred to London to work in the
office that dealt with security of valuable goods and also the rota
of guards’ duties.

Safe keys

About this time, one of the keys kept on the channel boat was
lost and Tester had to arrange a replacement. He was able to
smuggle it to Agar for a matter of minutes and a wax impression was
made.

The next difficulty was to obtain an impression of the second
safe key. The group came up with a cunning plan. Arrangements were
made for a box of bullion value £200 to be sent to Agar at
Folkestone addressed to ‘CE ARCHER, c/o Mr LEDGER or Mr CHAPMAN’,
who were two clerks at Folkestone.

The box travelled in October 1854, and on arrival Agar called for
the box and saw Chapman open the safe with a key he had taken from
a cupboard in the office. At the end of October, Pierce and Agar
returned to Folkestone and when the boat train came in, they
watched until the two clerks were called from the office, and the
pair had their opportunity to make an impression of the key in the
brief absence of the clerks – a piece of perfect timing.

Agar next went to Boulogne and spent a week watching the
handling of traffic from boat to rail. He travelled many times on
the trains worked by Burgess to test the keys on the safes. He and
Pierce then purchased two hundredweights of lead shot, the same
weight as the £12,000 worth of gold they were planning to
steal.

Some of the shot was packed in small parcels and then placed in
specially-made leather courier bags, and the rest was carried in
carpet bags, commonly used by travellers. Night after night Agar
and Pierce, the latter heavily disguised with a wig and whiskers,
carried the bags to London Bridge Station to wait for the signal
from Burgess to suggest the time was right to rob the train.

Stealing the gold

On the night of 15 May 1855, both Burgess and Tester tipped them
off. Agar and Pierce booked two first class tickets to Dover and
also took with them the return halves of tickets to Ostend.

They handed the carpet bags to a porter to place in the guard’s
van. Pierce took a seat in a compartment and Agar slipped
unobserved into Burgess’ van. He had with him a mallet, chisel and
other tools for opening the boxes and also carried wax and tapers
for resealing them.

Soon after the train left London, he opened the first safe with
the false keys and knocked the iron clamps off one of the boxes. He
took out the gold bars, substituted the parcel of lead shot,
replaced the iron fastenings and nails and resealed the boxes. By
the time the train reached Redhill, Agar had completed the first
box. Tester was waiting there and Burgess handed him one bar of
gold, with which he returned to London on the next train.

Pierce joined Agar in the van to help with the other boxes. They
opened them successfully, but found they had not brought sufficient
lead shot and this accounted for the discrepancy in the weight at
Boulogne. Before they left the van the boxes were all carefully
readjusted, the van was swept up and everything was left apparently
normal.

At Folkestone, the safes were taken from the train in the usual way
and Pierce and Agar travelled to Dover, where they collected the
carpet bags from Burgess’ van.

Agar had an anxious moment at Dover because a persistent porter
insisted on carrying the bags, but fortunately for Agar, did not
suspect their unusual weight. Both men returned to London, to
Agar’s house at Cambridge Villas, Shepherd’s Bush. A furnace was
built and day after day Agar and Pierce melted the gold down. Some
of the gold was sold and the proceeds divided between the three of
them.

Arrests

Shortly afterwards Agar was arrested on the separate charge of
forgery. After his arrest, Pierce buried some of the gold in the
pantry under the front steps of his house at Kilburn Villa. After
Agar told his story, Rees, the solicitor, went to this house
accompanied by police officers and found bonds to the amount of
£2,000 and other valuable securities. At Agar’s house in Shepherd’s
Bush traces were found of the gold and corroboration of other
evidence provided by Agar.

Many witnesses were traced to corroborate Agar’s statement
detailing the Great Gold Robbery. A booking clerk at Folkestone
recognised Agar, and Inspector Hazell recalled that he had seen him
there on several occasions. The porter who carried Agar’s bags was
traced. A guard remembered seeing Tester carrying a black leather
bag at Redhill on the night of the robbery, the bag having been
described in detail by Agar. The same guard also remembered having
seen Pierce and Agar together at Folkestone some time before the
robbery. There was also evidence that Tester had deliberately
altered the guards’ duty roster so that Burgess was in charge of
the mail train on the night of 15 May.

The men were convicted, the jury being absent only ten minutes.
Burgess and Tester were sentenced to transportation for fourteen
years, but Pierce, convicted of simple larceny, only received two
years with “the first, 12th and 24th month to be spent in solitary
confinement”.

It was a remarkable case and the crime had all the hallmarks of
great robberies – the audacity, the link with the man with inside
information, the reconnaissance, the careful planning and the
patience.